Richard Hoggart, 1918-2014

“By using a common four-letter term for sexual intercourse, he went on, Lawrence was trying to remove the stain of profanity from plain English words. ‘We have no word in English for this act which is not either a long abstraction or an evasive euphemism, and we are constantly running away from it, or dissolving into dots,’ Professor Hoggart said.”
 — Richard Hoggart is pretty much the father of cultural studies, so I don’t know if my primary emphasis in his obituary would have been his testimony in the Lady Chatterly case, but having missed the opportunity to collect the first round of obituaries a couple of weeks ago when he actually died, I guess I don’t get to make that decision and this is as good a place as any to make my tardy note of his passing. And also to note the Times’ continued contortions in avoidance of the word “fuck.” Hoggart was 95.